The technical domain of the present invention is propellant systems for spacecraft, such as those contemplated for use at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, which must be able to take off from a horizontal runway, carry a cargo to an altitude in the range of 200 km and at a speed which can exceed mach 20, then descend and land on a horizontal runway.
So that this type of spacecraft may be reusable, it is necessary to provide it with a propellant system which can be used throughout the entire range of flight and of which the operation can be reversible so that the propellant system can then be used again for the return into the earth's atmosphere and the spacecraft will optionally be able to land on any sort of landing terrain.
Spacecraft of this type are being considered for two types of missions. The first type consists of transporting loads into space (to satellites, or to carry provisions for spacecraft remaining in orbit), and then returning to earth to subsequently carry out further missions
Another type of mission is the use of the very high speeds and very high altitudes which spacecraft engines can attain to accomplish ultra-speed transport between two distant points on the terrestrial globe.